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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sun Feb 06 2011 - 15:02:29 EST
Sudan troops mutiny in southern oil state; 50 killed
Sun Feb 6, 2011 5:51pm GMT
* Southern troops in northern army refuse to leave for north
* Fighting near oil concessions run by CNPC-led consortium
(Adds detail, quotes from southern army)
By Jeremy Clarke
JUBA, Sudan, Feb 6 (Reuters) - A mutiny by Sudanese troops refusing to leave
the south ahead of its expected independence has spread through towns in an
oil-producing state, with at least 50 people killed in the past four days,
officials said.
The southern and northern armies are carrying out a difficult process of
splitting up and dividing their weapons, with Southern Sudan expected to
emerge as Africa's newest state on July 9 following a referendum last month.
Battles with tanks and machineguns broke out in the politically sensitive
southern town of Makalal on Thursday when southern members of a northern
army unit refused to redeploy to the north and turned on other members of
their unit.
Fighting then spread from Makalal, capital of Upper Nile state, to the
settlements of Melut and Paloich on Friday and Saturday, state officials
told Reuters on Sunday.
The area includes oil concessions run by Petrodar, a consortium led by CNPC
of China and including Malaysia's Petronas [PETR.UL] and Sudan's own
Sudapet.
Final results of last month's referendum are due to be announced on Monday.
Early results show the vast majority of southern voters chose independence
in the vote, the result of a 2005 peace accord that ended decades of civil
war.
"The fighting in Malut yesterday (Saturday) killed 19 and wounded 18 ... In
Paloich 11 were killed and eight wounded," said Akuoc Teng Diing, county
commissioner of Melut county. All the dead in the two locations were
soldiers, he said.
Officials earlier had said 20 people died in Malakal, including two children
and a Sudanese driver working for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, caught in
the crossfire.
Malakal has been patrolled by a combined military unit made up of the
north's Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the south's Sudan People's Liberation
Army (SPLA). The United Nations says the joint force is in the process of
splitting up.
The SAF unit included many southern soldiers drawn from a militia that
fought alongside the north during the civil war. Southern army spokesman
Philip Aguer said it was those southern soldiers in the SAF unit who
resisted the redeployment north and began exchanging fire with other members
of the same SAF unit.
Aguer said one part of the unit was now heading north with the weapons,
while the attackers had remained in the south.
"We know where they are. They have stopped shooting," he said. "Nobody has
been arrested. How do you arrest people with guns? Negotiations are
ongoing."
(Writing by Andrew Heavens; Editing by Peter Graff)
C Thomson Reuters 2011 All rights reserved
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